Uncommon Words: Definitions to Expand Your Vocabulary

Vocabulary Expansion: Uncommon Words and Definitions

Expand your vocabulary with this list of uncommon words and their definitions:

• Apocrypha (n/adj): The parts of the Bible called into question; of spurious authorship or intent; false.
• Arabesque (n): A sinuous, spiraling, undulating, or serpentine line or linear motif.
• Assiduous/Assiduity (adj/n): Constant, tireless, diligent, persistent.
• Balustrade (n): Railing or barrier.
• Banal (adj): Devoid of originality; clichéd or hackneyed.
• Celerity (n): Swiftness or speed.
• Clavichord (n): A soft keyboard or organ music instrument.
• Cloying (adj): Trying too hard to be nice and in the process evoking disgust.
• Coalesce (v): To grow together; to join together.
• Collude (v): To act together with a shared understanding; to conspire or join together secretly.
• Coup de grâce (n): A fatal blow; a finishing or decisive blow.
• Demagogue/Demagogic (n/adj): A leader who uses feelings to persuade irrationally / The art of leading by.
• Diminutive/Diminution (adj/n): Small, tiny / Of tiny stature.
• Dybbuk (n): A demon, or the soul of a dead person, that enters the body of a living person and directs the person's conduct, exorcism being possible only by a religious ceremony.
• Evanescent (adj): To disappear gradually or to fade away.
• Extant (adj): Still in existence.
• Frenetic (adj): Frantic or frenzied.
• Genuflect (v): To bow in respect to another.
• Gestalt (n): Better than the sum of its parts would suggest.
• Habituate/Habituation (v/n): The act of familiarizing one to a stimulus; dependence short of addiction.
• Impervious (adj): Impenetrable; not permitting passage.
• Jingoistic/Jingoism (adj/n): Extreme and emotional nationalism, or chauvinism, often characterized by an aggressive foreign policy, accompanied by an eagerness to wage war.
• Lummox (n): A clumsy, stupid person.
• Moll (n): A prostitute or a female criminal.
• Nonpareil (adj): Having no equal, peerless.
• Oratory/Oratorical (n/adj): The art of public speaking / Employing tactics used in public speaking.
• Parlance (n): Talk, whether it is formal or informal.
• Pastiche (n): A collage of literary or musical techniques borrowed from one or more sources.
• Pestilence/Pestilential (n/adj): The plague / Harmful, dangerous, or annoyingly troublesome.
• Probity (n): Having to do with the truth or integrity.
• Riposte (v): To come back quickly, as in sword fighting or conversation.
• Spectral (adj): Having to do with ghosts or other-worldly phenomena.
• Stasis (n): The state of equilibrium caused by equal and opposite forces.
• Tabla (n): A small hand drum from India.
• Transmogrification (n): Changing Grossly in form.